State of the Industry

At a meeting of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, U. S. cinema producers last week heard some startling counsel from Merlin Hall Aylesworth, president of Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corp. Said Mr. Aylesworth: "The industry is facing the economic fact that attendance has fallen from 10,000,000 a day in 1928 to 6,000,000 a day for the first four months of 1932. Film companies are not as independent as they would like to think. . . . If one goes to the wall, they all will." He said that the cinema industry was facing bankruptcy within 90 days. He advised the major producing companies to apply for receiverships, predicted that when one of them "sacrificed its pride" the others would do likewise. Main causes of difficulty, he declared, were "ridiculously large salaries" for stars and executives. Receiverships would invalidate many of their contracts.

Cinema producers may have been astonished at Mr. Aylesworth's advice last week. They could not have been startled by the information that they were in a fierce financial pickle. Since talkies were established in 1928. the cinema business has been going rapidly downhill. Last year was its worst. Of first-line companies, only Loew's, Inc. (of which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is the producing subsidiary) made an appreciable profit ($7.43 per share). The others made a panicky attempt to economize by cutting salaries and production costs; to increase efficiency by bizarre shifts in personnel; to increase profits by copying any picture that showed signs of making money.

Always addicted to imitation, the cinema industry enjoyed no fewer than six "cycles" last year. United Artists' Arrowsmith, a brilliant picture about a doctor, caused two other pictures about physicians to be manufactured. There were cycles about reporters, lawyers, monsters, mothers compelled to practice prostitution to support their children, Broadway colyumists. A politician cycle, a Hollywood cycle (see p. 26) are forthcoming.

Most popular pictures of the year were Forbidden and Attorney for the Defense (Columbia); Five Star Final and The Man Who Played God (First National, Warner); Bad Girl and Delicious (Fox); Tarzan and Grand Hotel (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer); Shanghai Express, and The Smiling Lieutenant (Paramount); The Lost Squadron and Common Law (RKO) ; Frankenstein and Spirit of Notre Dame (Universal). Scarf ace (United Artists) cost most ($800,000) to make.

Publishing last week first results of a questionnaire addressed to exhibitors. Motion Picture Herald revealed that the most valuable players were Marie Dressier, Janet Gaynor, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo; Wallace Beery. Will Rogers, Charles Farrell, Clark Gable, Wheeler & Woolsey. Producers lost most of their money on program pictures--pictures of standard length (55 to 60 min.) meant to fit in on any theatre program.

Personnel. First important personnel shift was in Mr. Aylesworth's company nearly a year ago when RKO-Pathe and RKO-Radio merged production facilities, summoned young David O. Selznick from Paramount to take charge. Mr. Selznick was last week selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to head the 1932 committee on awards for achievements in motion pictures. Later RKO directors elected Mr. Aylesworth president in place of Hiram Brown. RKO is better off than it was a year ago. So is Universal, run by old Carl Laemmle's smart son "Junior," who started the monster cycle. Most extraordinary personnel changes were in Fox, where Edward Richmond Tinker, long with Chase National Bank, became president to succeed Harley L. Clarke, onetime utilities tycoon. Six months later Mr. Tinker became board chairman, was succeeded a president by Sidney Kent, onetime Paramount general manager. Winfield Sheehan, who last winter suffered a nervous breakdown and was reported out of Fox, last week re turned to his job of general manager. Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor have lost control of Paramount to John Hertz, taxi tycoon, and Theatre Owner Sam Katz of Chicago. Last week Paramount's pro duction manager, Ben Schulberg, resigned. Joseph Kennedy, onetime board chairman of Pathe, was reported planning to pur chase First National studios from Warner Brothers for a new company, with Mr. Schulberg in charge of production. Harry Cohn became president of Columbia in place of Joseph Brandt, planned to pay some of his scenarists and actors picture royalties. A new cooperative producing organization, the Screen Guild, headed by President Michael Charles Levee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, last week prepared to start its first production, Chocolate, which Cecil Blount DeMille will direct.

Costs. Fundamental difficulty in the cinema industry lies not in production costs, but in the cost of maintaining chains of theatres. It is harder to reduce invest ments in chains of theatres and the costs of running them than to reduce the costs of making pictures to fill them. Producers last year tried to make pictures for $200,000 each. Except Scarf ace, completed early in the year, there were almost none which cost more than $300,000; none, like Trader Horn, which cost $1,000,000 or more. All producers cut office salaries; most producers tried to cut the salaries of employes under contract. George Arliss and Richard Barthelmess reduced their own salaries. James Cagney last week quit Hollywood because his pay was not increased (see p. 26). Also last week Ina Claire retired from the cinema to return to the stage. Her reason: "I didn't have my say. I took the movies too seriously."

Plans. Cheered only by the dubious satisfaction of being able to look backward on the worst year in their history, cinema producers had last week finished announcing their production schedules for 1932-33-Added to their other burdens next year will be a Federal amusement tax of 10% on admissions over 40-c-. This will affect only 400 of 12,500 U. S. cinema theatres. Squirming together in the same kettle of fish, cinema producers have lately realized that, to keep their own theatres open, they need the assistance of rival producers. Next year they will cooperate more than heretofore by lending high-priced players to each other to make sure the actors earn their salaries. Greta Garbo (MGM), who was planning to retire until last fortnight when she was reported to have lost $1,000,000 in the failure of the First National Bank of Beverly Hills, may make a picture for Paramount. Joan Crawford (MGM) last week finished Rain for United Artists. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer will lend Clark Gable to Paramount in exchange for Fredric March. Warner Brothers may return Ruth Chatterton for one picture to Paramount, whence they lured her last year. Universal will lend Lew Ayres to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for one picture opposite Norma Shearer. Next year Paramount is likely to adopt the policy instituted in Grand Hotel by MGM Production Manager Irving Thalberg, of casting several stars in one picture. Forced to make as many pictures as ever, to keep theatres operating, producers had by last week announced the number of cinemas they will make next year:

Paramount 65

Warner Brothers 70

United Artists 12

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 52

Universal 26

Columbia 24

RKO 62

Fox 48

The New Pictures

Bring 'Em Back Alive (RKO) will probably be one of the most profitable pictures of the year. It did not cost much. RKO bought the rights to Frank Buck's book, telling how he captured live wild animals for U. S. zoological gardens (TIME, Oct. 6, 1930), then despatched Author Buck to Sumatra with a director and two cameramen to take pictures of the procedure. Director Clyde E. Elliott knew that people like wild animal cinemas for the same reason that they like the tigers in the circus. Remembering UFA's brilliant short of a fight between a mongoose and a cobra, he saw to it that there were plenty of fights in Bring 'Em Back Alive.

Most spectacular fight in this film is an enlargement of UFA's: a struggle between a python and a tiger. The tiger gets the python by the throat. The python coils around the tiger's middle. The tiger shakes himself loose and goes to get a drink of water. Finally Frank Buck captures both, the python by hauling him into a cage, the tiger by building a box-trap out of logs. Alert cinemaddicts will guess that actually the tiger and the python were both captured before their fight, recaptured later for the camera.

Other engrossing fights in Bring 'Em Back Alive are tiger v. water buffalo, tiger v. black leopard, tiger v. crocodile, crocodile v. python, python v. honey bear. The honey bear comes out better than the rest of Author Buck's creatures because he runs away first. Small and incredibly clumsy, he is the most charming of Author Buck's captives which include a quarter-ton elephant, a pot-bellied monkey, a white fuzzy creature which runs up & down on a rope.

Winner Take All (Warner). James Cagney does not know much about boxing and no one in the studio bothered to teach him. But that in no way diminishes the value of this picture. Cagney always does his best sparring against his leading ladies and in this picture he has two of them to threaten. He hits neither and only kicks the one who deserves it (Virginia Bruce). She is a lady of patrician manners and gutter instincts, attracted to Cagney by his potato nose and inflated ear. When he has these improved by a plastic surgeon, she likes him less; on the night of his fight for the lightweight championship she is planning to sail for Havana with another admirer. Cagney hears about it in the ring. "Call me a taxi," he tells his second. Then he knocks out his opponent, races to the pier in his bathrobe, delivers another knockout. When last seen, he is being reconciled with a previous sweetheart (Marian Nixon) brought to see him by his manager (Guy Kibbee).

Like Actor Cagney's previous impersonations, this one has a quality of effortless authenticity. It is not exactly acting-- no one could be taught to say "bhointt up" as Cagney says it without being raised in sight of Brooklyn Bridge--but it is funny. Warner Brothers may have underpaid Actor Cagney but they have always given him good dialog. His comment after listening to a piano recital: "That guy has a great left 'hand." After bickering for two months (TIME, May 9) about his $1.600 weekly salary which he considered outrageously low, Cinemactor Cagney was last fortnight said to have reached an agreement with his employers, but last week he denied this. He left Hollywood to motor to Manhattan, stated that his cinema career (The Public Enemy, Smart Money, Taxi, Blonde Crazy, Winner Take All) was definitely finished.

What Price Hollywood (RKO). Hollywood stories, about the vagaries of cinema producers, the diversions of their employes, reached the dignity of the stage two years ago in Once in a Lifetime. Last year Howard Hughes wanted to make a savage picture about Hollywood called Queer People. He was dissuaded. What-Price Hollywood is the first cinema upon the subject.

If the film really tried to answer the question in its title the result would be a tragedy (see p. 24), but it does not do so. It starts when a drunken director named Maximilian Carey (Lowell Sherman) walks into a Hollywood restaurant and orders six glasses of water. He is served by Mary Evans (Constance Ben-nett), a waitress who wants to be a star in cinema. She brings Carey his water so efficiently that he takes her to the opening of his picture and subsequently enables her to get a contract as an actress.

The mise-en-scene of the picture lends point to later developments which, in another environment, would have been improbably eccentric. Mary Evans marries a polo player named Lonny Borden (Neil Hamilton). This makes Maximilian Carey so unhappy that he takes to drink in earnest. He becomes incompetent to go on directing pictures in which Mary Evans is the star, eventually shoots him self in Mary Evans' home. The unjust scandal of this episode forces her to run away to France, where her husband, bring ing her a new contract, finds her.

Toward the end of What Price Holly wood its satire is somewhat confused by sentiment but there are passages at the gay beginning which have the raucous air of wisecracks from Variety. When Mary Evans meets her producer (Gregory Ratoff), he chases her out of the room, crying to his three reassuring assistants : "No, No! One yes at a time." Presently he calls her back, gives her a seven-year contract. Constance Bennett is a pound or two heavier than heretofore, less gruff* in her speech.

* Cinemactress Bennett is unable to make a loud scream. When called upon to do so, she employs a professional screamer, Miss Alice Doll, who screams also for Ruth Chatterton, Kay Francis.

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